This majestic place drops jaws, but more often than not it also proves the point that ‘good views do not necessarily make good photos’.

I found it fiendishly difficult to photograph, although I suspect I’d do a better job now than I did back in 2016 when I took this image. The reality is that there’s little in the way of foreground interest across much of the Canyon, certainly from the spots on the South Rim that I visited, and while I was able to get a few shots that featured an outcrop or an isolated tree, more often than not these promontories were jammed up with the massed ranks of tourbus tourists, jostling for their Instagram jollies.

So, it really came down to the light. Sunrises and sunsets were truly incredible, with the redness of the rocks duetting with the sky tones to create an anthemic, soaring climax of colour. Next time I visit, I suspect I might head down into the Canyon to get close up and personal with the incredible formations carved by the Colorado River … either that or take and extended nap and then shoot from dusk ‘til dawn, because the stars out here … well, that’s another story altogether!

This shot came at the end of an epic, memorable night, spent shivering on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon in subzero temperatures.

I was attempting to capture my first proper star trail image, so I had my camera set to shoot every 20 seconds or so at a 20-second exposure. Once you start these shoots, you’re committed to the long game, and committed I was!

There were all kinds of complications, not least the utter stillness and frigidity of the cold night air that insisted on coating the camera lens with a sheen of frost. Once that starts to appear, photos quickly become blurry and opaque, and it’s virtually impossible to remove in between images, so I ended up having to settle for around 100 decent quality images to build my star trail shot with. I’d also barely given a second thought to the rules of composition, that applies just as much at night as they do during the day, so the best I could do was find several skeletal trees as my attempt at foreground.

As light slowly bled into the night sky, a slow reveal began under bluebird skies. Blue hour was slowly subsumed by Golden Hour, and as the sun slowly crested above the dormant peaks, the new day was bathed in glorious magenta tones, the light duelling with the red sandstone of the peaks.